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NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED
May 5, 1876

COMPLAINTS have come to us concerning the action of the Bursar in regard to the transfer of rooms. The old transfer is a thing of the past, and it has been said that if one man wants to give up a room which another is anxious to get, it is impossible for the thing to be done. He who first drew the room, it is said, must hold it, no matter how many homeless wretches may long to rest their limbs within. We have examined the matter and find that the case is not quite as bad as this. One cannot give his room to any particular man, but the new arrangement provides a way by which he can make over his right to several men, as it were, who will struggle among themselves, and the luckiest will take the room.

Any one who has a room which he desires to dispose of must make a statement to that effect at the Bursar's office. A list will be made, probably in June, of the rooms whose holders do not intend to occupy them; applications will be received for these rooms precisely as they are received before the annual allotment; a drawing will then be made by lot and the result will be published. During the summer this process will be repeated whenever there are rooms put up at the Bursar's office. The main objection to the plan is its inconvenience. The charges of unfairness, which have been made regarding it, are entirely without foundation, for now the last trace of favoritism has disappeared. We are obliged to put up with the inconvenience of the process because of the disgraceful traffic in rooms carried on last year and the year before. It is unfortunate that the new scheme could not have been arranged so that the pipers would have been paid out of the pockets of the dancers. This was almost impossible, and we who have not traded in rooms must suffer, with those who have, the consequences which follow that traffic.